ASSESSING A MULTI-PHASE APPROACH TO PERSONNEL SELECTION: AN EXAMINATION OF THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS AMONG FOUR PHASES OF A SELECTION SYSTEM (CENTER)

Author

PHILLIPS, AMANDA PEEK

Date

1986

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Abstract

The present study provided a field test of the interrelationships among four phases of a selection system. The four phases included the pre-interview evaluation, the interview, the post-interview evaluation, and an assessment center exercise. Dipboye's (1982) social process model of the interview was employed as the theoretical framework with which to examine the first three phases of the selection system. The interrelationships among the first three phases and the assessment exercise were examined by assessing the increment in prediction of the results on the exercise obtained from using the pre-interview and interview phases of the study.
Subjects were 34 interviewers and 164 applicants for the position of account executive, drawn from 19 branch offices of a large financial services corporation. Interviewers reviewed the applicants' application materials and then completed two questionnaires, one prior to the interview and the other following the interview. The job applicants completed a questionnaire following the interview. The questionnaires served as the primary method of data collection.
The study tested six propositions based on the social process model and found, overall, good support for them. Three sub-models of the overall model were also tested using the technique of structural equation modeling, and they demonstrated good fit to the data. Assessing the interrelationships among the first three phases and the assessment exercise, very little variability in any of the results of the exercise was explained by information gathered at either the pre-interview or interview phases or by both of the phases considered together.
Based on the results of the present study, I conclude that the social process model provides a promising theoretical framework in explaining the interrelationships among the first three phases of the present organization's selection system. There are a number of practical implications of the model for the way in which interviewers conduct interviews, and these implications are discussed. I also conclude that the assessment exercise appears to provide information about the applicants that is unique from that gained in the earlier phases of the selection process. The implications of this conclusion for the future use of advanced assessment procedures are discussed.

Keyword

Industrial psychology

Citation

PHILLIPS, AMANDA PEEK. "ASSESSING A MULTI-PHASE APPROACH TO PERSONNEL SELECTION: AN EXAMINATION OF THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS AMONG FOUR PHASES OF A SELECTION SYSTEM (CENTER)." (1986) PhD diss., Rice University. http://hdl.handle.net/1911/16004.